


Sides of a Whole

by dogmatix



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Cecil is Human, Cecil is Inhuman, Gen, M/M, Other, h/c?, post ep-33
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogmatix/pseuds/dogmatix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's another tape.</p>
<p>(SPOILERS for ep-33, Cassette)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so I wrote this right after listening to ep-33, Cassette.

Carlos showed up at Cecil's apartment, huffing and out of breath. He'd tried to catch the radio host at the station, but Cecil had already been gone, the radio station dark and dead, lights turned off and doors locked. Not even an intern to be found.

The show hadn't even been finished when Carlos had shot out of the lab, leaving Morris and the others to close up. Cecil hadn't called or even texted after the show.

The mirror in the men's bathroom had been covered, now that he thought about it. He'd seen it a few times when he'd come to visit Koshekh or his kittens. With everything else happening in Night Vale, a covered mirror hadn't even blipped his weirdness-radar.

"Cecil?" Carlos called, more quietly than he'd intended. He brought his knuckles up to knock, then chickened out and tried the door. It opened.

Carlos shuffled in slowly, cautiously. The apartment was silent, the only sound some chanting floating down the hall from two doors over. Carlos nudged the door closed behind him, muffling the steady voices. "Cecil, are you here?" he tried again.

The light in the kitchen was on, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Moving down the short hallway, Carlos turned into the small living area and stopped with a jerk.

Cecil was sitting on the old plush sofa that was a garish shade of green in proper light. At least, Carlos assumed it was Cecil. In the half-darkness of the living area, hunched over with his arms on his knees, the figure could have been almost anyone. "Cecil?"

There weren't any mirrors in Cecil's apartment. Not in the hallway, not in the bedroom, not even in the bathroom. How had he never noticed that before? "Are you okay?"

Cecil reached out one hand and nudged a small object on the coffee table. It moved with the delicate scrape of plastic on wood. Carlos' skin prickled into gooseflesh. "There's another tape?"

"Yes."

"Have. Have you listened to it?"

A head-shake. "Noo."

Carlos crouched down besides Cecil's hunched form. He wanted to ask if he could listen to the tape. What might be on there could give them new data, new information to work with. But this was Night Vale, and Carlos' boyfriend was looking at the bland little plastic shape like it was a venomous snake. "Break it."

Cecil swallowed heavily, tore his gaze away from the tape and stared at Carlos. "W-what?"

"Whatever happened, it was years ago. You said it yourself, it's in the past."

"But, what if- what if-"

Carlos had resigned himself to Cecil not being human long ago. The winding tattoos that only moved when no-one was looking, the way Cecil's teeth were sometimes a bit too sharp to match regular human dentition. At first Carlos had thought he was imagining things, or misremembering. Or maybe that someone was playing an elaborate practical joke. But in Night Vale, 'practical jokes' often _weren't._

Cecil had never brought it up. When Carlos had come to terms with the truth of the situation, he'd made the conscious decision not to bring it up either. Maybe it was perfectly natural for Cecil to be whatever he was, and mentioning it would be insulting or offputting. Maybe it was tied to being a radio host somehow - Cecil seemed to have an awfully good finger on the pulse of Night Vale. Mainly, Carlos hadn't asked because he hadn't wanted to make Cecil feel like a lab experiment.

Now, Carlos wondered if Cecil even _knew_ about the moving tattoos, the pointed teeth.

"It doesn't. Matter." Carlos put a firm hand around Cecil's bicep. "You're _Cecil_. You're _here_."

Cecil tilted towards Carlos, who only barely managed not to overbalance as he found himself wrapped in a long, tight hug.

"I have to know," Cecil mumbled into Carlos' labcoat.

"Are you sure?" 

"Yes," Cecil said, not sounding eager, only resigned.

"Okay. ...We can always drink to forget, afterwards," Carlos tried for an encouraging smile and got as far as a wry grin. That got him a weak smile and a nod in return. Carlos cringed inside but didn't show it - he knew his personal touch needed work. Even the scientists working under him had better people-skills most of the time.

"What will you think of me though, my perfect Carlos?" Cecil asked quietly. "I don't even know what to think of myself."

Carlos pulled Cecil in for another hug. "We'll work this out. Trust me."

"My perfect Carlos," Cecil said again, voice only wobbling slightly.

The cassette slid into its slot without fuss, and Cecil clicked the cassette player closed without trouble. Taking a deep breath, Cecil pressed play.


	2. Chapter 2

Carlos and Cecil sat flush against each other on the comfortable, garish green couch. The half-dark of the apartment's living area was both nerve-wracking and soothing. The tape started to play.

For a few seconds there was only the silence of empty air, then a cough, harsh and somehow echoing. Carlos felt Cecil's hand twitch where it was clutching his knee.

An ungodly screech, like metal on metal and nails on chalkboard reverberated from the tape player, discordant chaos in several keys, all grating. Carlos clapped his hands over his ears and bent double, but it didn't help, the sound cutting straight into his brain. And it just went on and on and-

Cecil lurched forward and slammed the stop button just as the noise on the tape trailed off.

"What, what was that?" Carlos couldn't help but ask. His heart was beating fast, and his palms felt sweaty when he pulled them away from his ears. He shook all over. The noise had sounded like something from Station Management.

"'Greetings, Night Vale,'" Cecil said shakily, his usual poise utterly gone.

"What?" Carlos blinked. That wasn't Cecil's radio voice, it was as if he was repeating- Oh. "That's what- You understood that?"

"...yes."

Cecil _understood_ the screeching torment. Carlos' heart sank at the implications. "If you want to stop...?"

Cecil shook his head, almost convulsively, and punched play again.

There was the sound of harsh breathing, then a young voice. "No, no you can't, not my life, no-" scared and angry, but it was definitely the teenage Cecil Palmer's voice. "I won't- I won't let you-" But a harsh undercurrent was building up, surfacing and taking over the young human voice, swamping it with enraged growls and screeches. 

Carlos risked a glance at Cecil, but the radio host was bent over, shoulders tight as stretched wire. 

The voice on the tape continued to vacillate between panicking human teenager and inhuman screeches, but they were slowly evening out, and the screeching horror seemed to be in control, or at least the voice that finally emerged was much too calm for Carlos' peace of mind.

"Greetings, Night Vale, this is.... Cecil," came the smooth, dark voice from the tape recorder. "Hmm. I wonder what I sound like." the tape made the click that meant the person recording had turned it off, and this time it was Carlos who mirrored the action, turning off the tape. He needed time to process what he'd heard because... well. Because it all seemed to be pointing in a very unsettling direction.

The voice at the end had sounded like Cecil, like _his_ Cecil, Carlos acknowledged reluctantly. Gone had been the jittery teenage enthusiasm, the cracking voice and bright laughter. It had still sounded like a teenager's voice, not quite matured, but still much calmer, more confident. A predator's confidence. 

A predator he was sitting right next to. Carlos felt his blood run cold. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Cecil was still hunched over, fingers digging into his own upper arms so fiercely that Carlos thought he saw a bead of blood well darkly to the surface. The tattoos were flickering, changing and twisting visibly. "Cecil...."

Every logical fiber in his being was yelling at him to run. "Cecil, are you-"

Cecil sobbed, and every hair on Carlos' body stood on end. The double-voiced sob came again, one part freaked-out human, one part grating inhuman screech.

"Cecil," Carlos said, barely above a whisper. The dog park had nothing on the pure terror sapping the energy from his limbs right now.

Cecil came upright in small jerky movements, turning to let Carlos see the tears streaking down his cheeks. Carlos had long since gotten used to Cecil's purple eyes - an oddity even in Night Vale, but a small one, and harmless. It hadn't seemed to mean anything. No longer. Now, one eye was still human, but a dark, warm brown. The other was a roiling confusion of purple and black, slightly luminescent in the shadowed room. Cecil's shark-like teeth were caught in a grimace, and Carlos felt sick with fear.

In that moment, if Carlos could have moved his legs, he would have run.

"Carlos, help me," Cecil said, voice starting out high and human, then plunging into a deep, hellish, almost incomprehensible bass rumble. "Please."

He could try to run, a suddenly calm part of him realized through the terror. If he succeeded, he'd be leaving his boyfriend - his possibly possessed, or possibly possessing boyfriend - to suffer. If he failed, it would probably be because the selfsame boyfriend had caught him and eviscerated him.

Or, he could do the crazy thing.

Carlos opened his arms. "Come here."

Cecil lurched forward into Carlos' embrace, high whimpers and bass groans overlapping and mingling as Cecil hid his face the crook of Carlos' neck.


End file.
